Simon Dougherty

Concepts of solidarity for rethinking democratic politics and economic governance

After the second major crisis of capitalism in less than eighty years there is renewed recognition that the latest economic crisis is also a political one. Left and right, social movements are generating solidarity and “people power ” in hopes of renewing democratic politics and extending it to economic realms of life. The many meanings of solidarity and the ethical and political values that underpin them are diverse, contested, and up for grabs. My thesis aims to make sense of multiple meanings of solidarity in circulation today by looking at how contemporary social movements hold together across time and difference, and how they generate the energy and power to renew politics and economics.